This invention relates generally to a method of stringing tennis, and similar, rackets, and more particularly to such a method productive of rackets having superior playing qualities and which can be repaired more quickly and inexpensively than can rackets strung in conventional fashion.
Tennis rackets and rackets of similar character, such as badminton, racket ball and squash rackets, have for years been strung in such a way that damage to the strings can only be repaired by either patching the damaged areas alone or by replacing the strings in their entirety. Patching is often difficult and time-consuming because each job requires its own plan of attack, depending upon knot positions, string patterns, availability of hole space for the accommodation of strings, etc. Patching is particularly difficult in areas near the corners of the racket frame where the string holes in the frame carry multiple strands of string, and where it is occasionally necessary, for that reason, to enlarge with an awl one or more of the clear space areas within a hole or holes to make room for an additional strand, or strands, of the patching string. Consequently, the patching of tennis, and similar, rackets, is a time-consuming chore to the racket stringer for which he is not always well compensated. Moreover, patching often results in a poor quality repair job, for which reason the better players generally prefer to have their rackets completely restrung rather than merely patched. Complete restringing is, however, rather costly, especially where the finer qualities of string are used. This is not difficult to understand when it is appreciated that the average tennis racket requires in the neighborhood of 32 or 33 feet of string, which, when of high quality, results in a repair cost of something like $20.00 or $25.00 to the customer.
Tennis, and similar types of, rackets strung in accordance with presently conventional stringing methods have "sweet spot" (efficient hitting) areas of relatively fixed dimensions because of the string patterns used in such methods, regardless of the string tensions employed by the stringers. As those who play tennis, badminton or the like will appreciate, any enlargement of the sweet spot of the playing racket would improve the hitting efficiency, and hence the playing effectiveness, of the racket. No one has heretofore, to my knowledge, however, proposed any way of improving the efficiency of a tennis, or any other stringed, racket by this means.